Why Vox Wins: The Rise and Rise of Spain's New Right

Spanish Political Parties Series, Part 3 of 8

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Novayas presumiendo por ahí.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Diego, and we are back for another episode in our series on political parties in Spain.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Are you trying to get me to sing? If you're trying to get me on a karaoke mood, that is a Julio Iglesias song. That's what you need to do. You just put that on and I'll sing. But I was almost weeping the last time we played a song here. So let's leave music out the door for a while. Let's do this thing. We're gonna talk about Vox.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yes, you're gonna talk about X Vox. V-O-X, Latin for voice, Latin, not Spanish, which is also a curious touch. We're gonna get into, of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

We are Mediterranean tribes after all, and we were part of the Roman Empire, Hispania. And today, I guess, will be a very patriotic topic because regardless of what they speak about, be it housing, economic policy, national priority is always on the very high on the list of things that Vox advocates. And for our listeners, Vox is your you know alternative right party in Spain, your Trumpian right, your non-traditional, non-institutional political movement that has developed itself beyond the more what we could consider the legacy political traditions of the center right. And today, for reference, it sits in the regional government of different territories in Spain. It is key to the governance of every single territory where PP, the popular party, does not have an absolute majority, which is many areas, and it is also it also holds the key for governance in many municipalities where, again, if PP is not able to get an absolute majority, then Vox will enter coalition agreements, either joining the cabinet or at least supporting it from the local parliament. But therefore, today's center-right spectrum cannot be understood without considering the smaller partner, which what by the way is not that small because it's polling rather favorably at around 16% of the vote. Of course, PP will poll roughly twice that number. But in some demographics, for example, amongst young people, Vox is the more popular political movement in the country. And in some regional elections, it's surpassed it's even contested for second place with the Socialist Party. So we're talking of a relevant political movement which did not have a single seat, a single representative of any political level, European elections, national elections, regional elections, local elections, until 2018, if I'm not mistaken. But following a sweeping advance of the center right in an Andalusian regional election, Vox became a thing, and it's stayed there and it's actually grown.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

So it is a big movement. So there are a lot of myths and biases about Vox when it comes to international media. Of course, it is the what's the word, alt-right, far right, deep right. Yeah, I wanna I wanted to keep it as alt-right because I do think the term is more or less Yeah, but alt-right justifies the technical terminology if you think about alternative right-wing party, sure. But also alt-right is the synonymous term for crazy, far out, racist bigots. Yeah, well, I wasn't going for that, but people use it, so you have to be careful and just say, yeah, it's the alt-right party. Well, I've been using that for a few episodes now.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Glad you tell me.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

I wasn't I was sort of saying the like Yeah, in general, public conversation is in English, when that term comes up, that's what people usually mean by that in English.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Yeah, the technocrat, yeah. A good thing to be among elites in the Anglo Sphere, but here it's kind of like, yeah, exactly. Well trained, but lacking ideas and what's in the world. Yeah, well, so what I meant is a new political movement, it's not a legacy center-right group. Definitely nothing to do with center, it's a clearly a conservative group. And yes, their partners at the international level are the Donald Trumps, the Marine Le Pen's, the Javier Millet, the Georgia Maloneys of the world. So they sit on the Patriots group at the European Parliament. So obviously, those are their companies. But that was also a recent change. We'll get into why that's the same. Yeah, they're allies, but they ultimately this is a spin-off of PP. So it should be taken as so because that is kind of the case with alternative for Germany. Group of disgruntled people that were disenchanted with the CDU and its junior CSU partner from Bavaria, just created this new movement, and 10, 15 years later, they are a thing in German politics. Well, similar story here with Vox.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Yeah, similar in the dynamics, but we're not saying that Vox is similar structurally to AFD because there's quite a lot of differences in terms of how they see each other. Even when you're speaking to people from Vox, they always say, Oh, those you know, the AFD is a bit too wild for us, that kind of mentality. So we will get into why they actually don't see themselves as a parallel party.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

What we want to do here is simplify things for the sake of simplifying. We'll go deep and explain the roots of this party, what it stands for. Surely, if you just want to eat the media propaganda, okay, just these guys are racist, homophobic, socialist, like crazy, far right guys. Okay, turn off this podcast, move on to the next one. If you want to know what Vox really stands for, good and bad, because there will be criticism here on this episode too, just keep keep keep tuning this somewhere anywhere episode.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

So there are two ways we can start. One way, of course, is to discuss the why, what motivated the leaders from you know the split from Pepe, especially in after 2017 crisis in Catalonia with the illegal referendum. But I think it'll be maybe more useful to think about the leader of Vox and start from there. Santiago Abascal, what motivates Santiago Abascal? Why did he decide that he needed to leave Pipe to start Vox? That to me is a good start point.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

So Santiago Abascal was born in the Basque country, and although ETA, a socialist separatist terrorist group that was very active in the region and across Spain, is not active anymore. Thank God. By the way, it does have a political arm that is alive today. It's called Bildu, which is a disgrace, and it's part of the current coalition of alliances that the Spanish government has. But back when ETA was out in the open killing people, they took the lives of a thousand Spaniards roughly, and they drove hundreds of thousands of people out of the Basque country with their continued pressure and boycotts and just violence and intimidation, right? There's films that depict this, some of them available on Netflix, about you know, police policemen that had to infiltrate themselves on ETA and to try and get information and destroy their operation. And Abascal was born in that environment, and it was a hostile environment. And his dad, I believe, had the same name, so in in reality, his Santiago Skal Jr., if I'm not mistaken, right? But but his dad, who was a local councilman at a very small town in the Basque country, so nothing too fancy, nothing too big. But he didn't take apologies, but he didn't shit from these assassins. There was dozens of attempts of taking his life by ETA, literally dozens. So Abascal was born in that environment, and I guess that shapes who you are forever. Because these people are trying to kill your dad, and then they're trying to kill you for your ideas, right? And your ideas, in principle, are safeguarded by the Spanish constitution and Spanish democracy and Spanish history. Now no one would dispute the Basque Country has been an element of Spanish kingdom for ages, right? But there you see how politics get into your life in the most violent way possible. And when Abascal was attending university, he had a police escort with him. So he did not have a normal youth either. So he stayed there, served his party, the popular party, which he was a member of from a very young age, even underage, I think he was already in the youth movement. And it was a point in which he made a jump to Madrid, and the situation there had got him very difficult. So he made the jump to Madrid. I mean, his life had been threatened several times. So although he was, in a way, just a low-ranking politician from PP, everyone knew who he was. Just because these are the heroes of Spanish democracy that were like running for office in a place where you can literally get shot around the street for being with PP. By the way, these guys shot the socialists too. But now apparently the socialists don't have a problem striking coalition governments with the political heirs of this terrorist group. Not him, for sure. So he came to Madrid and he set up a foundation called Fundacion de Naes, which I guess is his first project here in Madrid that is done outside of the political party that is that he belonged to, and his father belonged to the popular party. And it was the foundation to defend the Spanish nation. That was its call. So in principle, that is not my forte. I guess that's not what I speak about or what I write about or I research about the most. I could respect people that may have these ideas, but not me. Don't come in to fragment Spain, which is a cultural historical reality that's been around for hundreds of years just because some politicians advocate that, right? So he set up this foundation, but he did create a contest, an award, for whoever wrote the best essay on the topic. And I was nominated, it didn't win, but I was nominated for one, which was based on the 1812 constitution of Spain, which remains a landmark document for Spanish constitutional history, and many would argue is the best relevant political constitutions since this since the American one.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

And you can find it in the Congress today, the actual constitution, the original one, also the death that it was signed on, is still in Las Cortes Reales in Madrid, near the doorway. So you can walk in and you realize, oh, we are here because of this. And they chose the 1812 constitution as that particular landmark in political history.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

This is also a very classically liberal constitution.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

So I was surprisingly so, even not surprisingly so far at the time, surprisingly so pre-read in an objective sense, is it one of the core things, for example, in the Caliph's constitution, or also called La Pepa in Spain, is the idea that even the people in Latin America should be considered to be Spanish citizens in the empire, which is a very interesting thing when you think about how now still Latinos have very fast access to Spanish nationality, much more than much faster than anyone else, where they have a two-year period where a non-Latino or non-person from a former Spanish Empire takes ten years. So even that kind of element is still present in Spanish politics.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

For sure. And we'll speak about Vox as you could probably imagine with sort of movements that he's in that this party is involved with, they do have a tough stance on immigration, but they do have a way softer touch when we're talking about Hispanic immigration. Now that has been become a bit less pronounced lately, but it is also could show that this concept of Hispanic cultural, political, heritage, historical legacy, it's something that is part of it's on its DNA, right? So I ran for that contest, and that's how I meant Abascalverse. So I've known him for many years now, and we have a very cordial relationship, and we may or may not agree on things, but he's I do consider him to be like a person I respect, and I think you would say the same. So that's why whenever PP frames them as far right fascist or whatever, I just you know my eyes go blank because A, they're not, B, they're actually spin-off of your party, C, they wouldn't exist if your party had followed up on its political platform promises. And D, why are you buying the left's narrative if ultimately you need these guys' boats to govern? You're diminishing your own political position because you're essentially saying that these guys are fascists, but yeah, a few days later you'll take the votes and just remain in power. So that makes you doesn't that make you a fascist or guilty by association? I don't know. But that's how it all started, and I guess my relationship with him has been ongoing there. By the way, I also met Ortega Smith, who's now been disgraced as their Madrid leader back then. So many of the people that were involved with Vox have been there for a long time, but he is no longer around.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

So that is Abascal, and Abascal, you know, he decided to Or like Trump called him Abiscal. Abiscal. Santiago Abiscalmy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

And he turned up and waved, and you know, I mean Abascal did travel an ocean just to get called Abyscal. Yeah. So he thought that counts. Okay, it does. You do it stem up, you get clapped. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

If you say Pax, so I guess. In America, like yeah, exactly. So I think that's fair. One of the things that we should mention more carefully now, it will probably come up later in the conversation, but this nuance about how Vox, you know, framed, I think incorrectly framed as a far-right party, accurate, how they do have they do make a distinction between Latino immigration and then non-Latino immigration, especially North African immigration, to a point where they even have these massive conferences and programs in Latin America for malad.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

That's a very important point you make, because for the longest time, uh that political, ideological, that that bridge between that Atlantic bridge, if you wish, uh was uh kept through and protected by the FIS Foundation under Aznar. Most of the center right leaders that you see today in Latin America, I met in person. Not because I was extremely well connected, because I was 20, 22 years of age, I was just a kid. But they all came to the FIS events here in Madrid. So Maria Corina Machado, I've got, I interviewed her like Nobel Prize winner. I interviewed her like back in 2013. Guillermo Lasso, president of Ecuador, met him. Macri, president of Argentina, met him, Ivan Duque, Juan Manuel Santos, Alvaro Uribe, presidents of Colombia, met them. That dialogue existed. But when Fiz became much of a smaller think tank, which is when they detached themselves from PP because Athanar sort of distancing himself from Rajoy, so Rajoy pulling the plaque on party fans from FIS, which ultimately made Feiss a way smaller think tank, that left a vacuum that was filled once Vox came out the rankings with a program that is called Foro Madrid that is running a fantastic job of keeping everyone that is to the right of the crazy left that is governing some countries in Latin America and has destroyed many others united and coordinated. So the Maria Corina Machados of the world, the Javier Miles of the world, like all of these folks, today they are connected through DiSenso's work. And DiSenso is the five of Vox is their thinking.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

And uh funny enough, I I spoke, I spoke at Forum Madrid last year in Axun Fion in Paraguay of all places. Flew there um to speak at their their events. So yeah, we you know we're talking from Vox of a very you know personal you're far-right gala that makes you a fascist, man. Get out of my room. For a personal reflection on what they do.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

And I I mean who's sitting next to you? It's like like just really respectable people, like future presidents of many countries, current MPs from many countries. That's right. Fernando Nistal, a friend of ours, who is the head of the think tank of one of the largest, if not the largest, private university in Spain. So yeah, like far right, far like no, just don't fall into that. Because those events are like, let me tell you, way more respectable, moderate, and institutional than many Republican Party stuff these days in the U.S.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

The president of Paraguay opened the conference completely normal stuff. Yeah, exactly. So mainstream, mainstream indeed, right-wing parties. Yeah, very no more. Nothing more, nothing less. Yeah. Not too they won't let it framing, but you know, a smaller PP, essentially. Yeah. You know, at least uh older PP.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

You do have to tell us about how you got into Paraguay at some point because I know there were some strings for there to get you there because of some some visa.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I can stay down because it's a very funny story, kind of. Go on, go ahead. So I have a Barbadian passport, and usually in I don't need a visa to go anywhere, especially in Latin America. So I thought, well, Paraguay is a small country, clearly I won't have to get a visa. So I had all my tickets, booked, and everything. And then when I went to a sign up to check, I came to my flight the day before, so 24 hours in flight open, and the flight asked me what's my visa number. I was like, oh, that's a mistake. Of course I don't need a visa for Paraguay, for all places, Paraguay. And then I checked. I can see you're but why?

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Yeah. Why? Rashid, my friend, let me Rashid of podcasts is notorious for his why? But why? I can see you going why at your laptop right now.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

So I checked, I just didn't I checked the visa website, and I was like, yes, barbarian citizens need a visa. A real, not online visa, a real go to the MBC. You attack Paraguay at once. I'm sure it's no reason at all for this. Diplomatic laziness. Yeah, exactly. That's all. Again, no one goes to Paraguay. This is a real thing, okay?

SPEAKER_03 20:06

So there's some digital nomads these days that consider that. And then everyone tells them that's like a it sorry, Paraguayans. It does have the fame of being a bit boring.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

It's very boring. It's very boring. I won't make words of that. It's very boring. It's a nice, you know, lower tax through addiction, but my god, it's very boring. Okay. Also, Americans they do have a faster visa process. But for me, the have an old gotta go to do an interview at the embassy in Paraguay, that kind of visa. But tell us it, well, I can't possibly do this. So I call someone from Vox who does the organization conference in Asuncion, who's already there, and I told him my predicament, granted, completely my fault. I understand that, but I gotta go there tomorrow. And he went to the mayor of Asuncion, who called the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who called the Minister of This, who called the president of Paraguay, and then it chained all the way back to Zong, where they gave me a special invitation letter from the state council to their first.

SPEAKER_03 21:12

Here you are calling them foreign. Like, hey, you should be an ambassador to I'm going back.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

I am going back soon next year. But they did so the government sent a letter to the minute the embassy in Madrid, and the embassy in Madrid sent a letter to the plane so that it can get a special visa waiver access to the country in less than 24 hours. And then they gone to the airport and they told the lady, Well, this might sound crazy, but I don't need a visa. There's some letter here for me from the government of Paraguay. She's like, what? And then she called her manager, and then the manager was like, Oh, you're Rashid. Yes, we have a thing from the embassy, some weird letter to lay on the plane. Come on, oh, come on.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

I'm the most famous guy on the airport. It looked totally ridiculous. It's a superstar treatment, to be honest. You know like there's this video, that this funny story about Ronaldinho, the very famous football player, and he entered without a visa. Ended up in jail. Of course. Yeah, it was released very quickly. In Paraguay. In Paraguay. Yeah, and he was in jail for a few hours. And then people re like, of course, there were some phone calls, and I ran, come on, that's Ronaldinho. Like, of course, yeah, no, that law should be equal. Whatever. The guy just made a mistake. And he was there to play some game. Okay. And then there's apparently he was playing while he was waiting. He was just playing soccer with the inmates. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Oh my goodness. Yeah, but then when I went to the conference, then I met the mayor who signed the letter for me and everything. Like, hey, you help me.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

You are that guy. So your talk better be good.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

So but yeah, I look for honestly for that effort. I'm definitely gonna go back at least once a year. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

But wait, it just shows you jumping back on top of that boxes. Yeah, Latin American outreach. Serious. And PP has recently recruited a diplomat who specializes on Latin American affairs to be the you know head of council for Feijó's foreign affairs strategy. And he's recruited part of the FIES staff because obviously they realize that well, if you're not sitting on the table, someone else will take that seat. And surely Vox has done that very well. And that all stems out from a vision of Spain's in a way, it's also a romantic view of Spain's history. It's like a way to evoke the Spanish Empire. So if that was worth something to you as a Spaniard, you surely don't look at Latin American relations with indifference. So as far as like, yeah, these guys may be nationalists in many ways or patriots, like they call themselves, but it is not as if they advocate for pulling out of the EU. Right. They are Eurocritical, Euro, but not Euroskeptic, I wouldn't label them as that.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

So the term Euroskeptic to me is so lazy. I prefer the term Eurooptimist in the sense that I, meaning someone from Vox, but I I do actually have this position anyway. So I can say I believe there are so many problems with the European Union, but they can be fixed and they can be improved. And so it's an optimistic story. Yeah, yeah. It's not it's not a skeptical story.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

Yeah, so they are there, they engage, they work on that, they get reforms done. And quite honestly, I've argued this. We had our podcast about EU. And I've argued, I agree then, I will continue to do so whenever I get asked about this, is that most of the current issues of the EU come from the obsession that the European PP has had with always doing things hand in hand with the European Socialist Party. Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Now there was a time for bipartisanship at the beginning of the European project, like for God's sake, Europe killed itself, right? So the more broader agreements you can get to lay out the foundations, that's valid. But we're in 21st century politics, maybe there's too much polarization, but the idea of just forcing something that is unnatural, like for PP and the socialist party in Spain to be fighting all the time, yet be the best of friends in Brussels, it's ridiculous. So Vox's view on that is so and they'll always point it out all the time.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 25:28

Vox is right. PP has had a double speech on many of these issues because then they'll go to Brussels and they'll allow deals to go through with the support of the socialists. So that's how that sort of overall view of things was being shaped before the party existed. Then there were some trigger events.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Yeah, but we should say before we leave this point that even one of the main people in Vox that does a lot of the thing about the foreign policy stuff, Jorge Martin Frias, who's also a former Pepe person as well.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

Yes, Jorge Martin Frias, I considered him a friend. I was a bit, I would not call myself a friend so easy with people that uh I like Jorge a lot, and he's a nice guy, and he's an MEP, and he had been a member of FIS. He had been a member of I advisor to one of the key members of PP in the mayor, sorry, in the local municipality of Madrid. And he had also launched Think Tank instead of sort of inside PP in a way, called Florida Blanca, where he did great work alongside another current MEP who is linked with PP, Isabel Benjomea. And so Jorge is part of that movement, and so are some other people that currently, or so were some other people, like Ortega Lara, for example, it's a very symbolic member of Vox because he was kidnapped by Eta, the terrorist group, and held in a I don't know, like a two by two room, if you even can consider that a room. A cell with no light, barely any food, didn't see light for literally a year and a half, two years. And one of these vivid memories I still have from my childhood in relation to political stuff is Ortella Galara was released. I didn't know who he was or why this mattered. I just remember this guy that looked like a like the survivor movie, right? When you're you've been on a desert island and you're like decrepit and you look awful. And I just remember his eyes, his eyes being absolutely lost. So that was a big deal. Huge deal. So no Spaniard that lived through those moments, and I was just a kid, but ha can't forget that. Just like no one forgets when Miguel Miguel Angel Blanco was killed. He was the leader of PP in San Sebastian, beautiful city in the north of Swing, in the Basque Country, great food, great wine, whatever. But he was the leader of PP, he was going to become the mayor. That would have been a turning point for local politics there.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

And he was shot in his head, in a restaurant, in the center of the city. So my I'm, you know, I'm I get goosebumps and my hair rises because this is part, it's a really serious part of Spanish political history, modern political history. So Ortega Lara, this guy that was kidnapped. He was a member of Vox. I think he's like member number one officially of the party. So when PP was too weak to defend Spanish unity with the Catalan referendum in the eyes of people like Abascal, and so they decided to launch their own platform, which from the get-go was called Vox, and still today it's called Vox, and that's how it was born. It's going to be 10 years now, roughly speaking, more or less. But they only earned, I think the first time they stood for an election was 2015 European election. Correct. And they won nothing. And they almost won a seat, but they did not. I say almost because European elections do have a more favorable electoral system because there is a un there's a there's not a territorial division of seats, they're all allotted nationally. So recently, that party that we've mentioned sometimes called parties over, se acabo de la fiesta, they did get three seats because the electoral system does allow smaller parties to get a little boost on the European elections, but they fell a bit short, and then it looked like he was going nowhere. And I remember seeing Abascal walk into a room full of people that liked him personally, respected him personally, and then they all shook his hand and then he left. And I remember all these people sort of elbowing himself, elbowing themselves and looking at, yeah, poor guy is going nowhere. He's done. So people thought he was done, and then and he wasn't. But it took a while because then no one some people heard of Box, they didn't get a seat. And then two years go by, almost three years go by, and boom. There's a sudden shift that no one saw coming in Andalusian politics. Andalusia being the largest region in terms of nine million inhabitants, also in terms of territorial size, it's essentially the southern area of Spain, run by the socialist, corrupt, crazy socialists for 40 plus years. Suddenly, PP alongside Ciudadanos, this centrist party which came up and disappeared in a matter of years, and Vox are able to form a majority. And since then, Vox has been a relevant force in Spanish politics.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

It is very surprising that Vox was able to break through in Andalusia of all places. This is a socialist, well, we can debate that now, but essentially historically a socialist stronghold and a seemingly far-right party of all the parts of Spain to break through. 12 seats, it was Andalusia in 2018.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

So if you look at it through the lens of the electoral history of the of Andalusia, you would have never guessed that Vox would be the key for that region to swing right. Could have guessed that PP at some point could win because most of the mayors of the largest cities, Sevilla, Malaga, Córdoba, really beautiful cities, by the way. PP had strong PP had strong local power, but then in the rural areas they did very poorly. But at the same time, it Vox is a party, you know, that is not so much about urban elites, cosmopolitan discourse on politics, globalist, like they call discourse, but rather bottom-up movement sick with top-down policies enacted by bureaucrats that do not take the regular guy into the equation, which all sounds very Trumpian, I guess. Then it doesn't become so awkward, right? Because Trump did win on traditionally Democrat strongholds. Then, when you look at it from that filter, then the Vox success in Andalusia doesn't seem so awkward. And in a way, I had always I remember having this talk with my wife and telling her when Andalusia swings right, it will stay right forever. Because it doesn't make sense on what is essentially a socially conservative area with a lot of rural population as well, plus a so a very corrupt socialist leadership, and I stress the term corrupt in the case of Andalucía. When they are able to overcome the legacy fact that our grandparents voted so the socialists, our parents voted socialists, so we're voting for the socialists. When you're able to overcome that, there's no going back. So you could argue the Trump coalition has changed some territorial dynamics for the Republicans. Mostly for the good, because the party now has wider support in some areas, also for the bad because it's now become unvotable in some other territories. But as a net, they can contest in areas where the Democrats would traditionally be the only ones talking to regular folks, right? Like hard hardworking, working class heroes, right? So Vox connected in Andalusia because of that.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

And from there, obviously Vox went up. They had a very big um boom in 2019, um, nationally also. But then 2023, they went down a bit in terms, well, went down a lot in terms of their electoral trajectory. And again, people thought, okay, Vox has peaked, the ceiling has been reached, it's just kind of down, down, they're gonna disappear like through the lanos, Pepe will again be the singular coherent force in the right or center-right movement, but that didn't happen. Essentially, Vox is now even stronger than it ever was.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

Yes, and in our PP episode, I kind of argue that if PP in the 80s had a ceiling, certainly Vox in the 2020s has a floor, which is that there's a certain percentage, I would argue, roughly 10% of the electorate, roughly. That these guys are sticking for Vox for a while. I can't say like 20, 30 years from now, I can't predict that. But I'm not, I don't see that at least at their worst, they've always pulled above 10%. And that shows you that there's a lot of disgruntled voters that do not trust PP anymore. I don't think they buy everything that Vox stands for, but they don't trust PP because of their ahoy years. And still today with Fei Hoy, it's just not enough for them. So that loyalty that Vox has created around it has stuck with it. And as we'll see, there's been platform changes and adjustments. Some relevant faces have been run out of the party, and they've been kind of ruthless managing internal descent, to be honest. But the fact is they remain, they're actually growing and more relevant today than before. So they've clearly not followed the same path than Ciudadanos, which was the other center-right group that crept up in 2018, because they faced up the separatists very well in Catalonia, so they became a centrist force that people did support in Spain in the 2019 election, and they just went under Teller two years later, and they don't have a single seat anywhere anymore. But for Vox, here to stay for at least for a long time, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

I want to move the on into their ideology, because that is the part that people are most confused about or also most ignorant about. But kind of like easing into that. We talked about how in Pepe there are these factions of ideology in Pepe from the beginning, that's what it has always been. You don't think of vox as having factions, but they do, or at least they used to.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

Yes, etnocratic in the good sense.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

In the good Anglo-Sanks, yes, it's Ivan Espinol for the de los Monteros.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

But obviously he's founding member of the party. Founding member of the party, he was essentially kicked out of the party last year and a half ago, or just two years.

SPEAKER_03 36:50

I think officially he's still in the party, but he's about to be taken out of it. But he's out.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Effectively out of the party.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

So is his wife, who was the leader of Vox in the Madrid region, who performed very well, to be honest, because she was running against Ayuso. Right. So she was able to get a very decent number of votes, considered that she was running against the superstar of center-right politics, right? So Ivan and 70%. Yeah, Ivan Espinoza is the son of a businessman who at some point had relevant posts in different comp like an airline or like uh Inditex, which is the owner of Zara, the fashion brand. Uh and the Ivan speaks perfect English. So Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Some French.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Again, marketing, you get a marketing team to think of potential candidates that people would love. At least in our realm, so he would sound like that sort of candidate.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

But but to mainly point more concrete, not only people would love, people do love. This is the tricky part here, because Ivan is extremely popular in quote quote our circle of people. And even when you go to when he gives, even now when he gives talks and so on, the room fills up crowd, it smells up. People really are drawn in by Ivan. And that was one of the so that was by far like the star when it comes to Vox in terms of the urban elite.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Yes. Everyone around Abascal was not seen as someone that had a profile that could, in a way, shadow him, I guess. But the party's development was originally very strong, very positive, but then there was a pivot. In between 2021 and 2023, once the growth trajectory was over and Vox had seemingly peaked and actually started to go down in the polls, they clearly decided to pivot less into becoming a reformed, improved, and also more of a right-wing version of PP. Fresh. With no we have no filter, we'll say and do what PP voters really would like PP to do, only that you can trust us and you can't trust them anymore. And they would talk a lot about economic freedom that was on the agenda. It was explicitly out there, flat tax proposals, whatnot. But they started to pivot more into okay, our voter base, okay, they know we stand for lower taxes and less regulation, but our growth trajectory is going to be determined essentially by the migration debate. So they decided to refocus more on the working class areas. They saw how their performance was actually better there. They were getting huge crowds on their rallies, equivalent to Trump, only that, of course, Trump eventually made it to the presidency. They've never won an election per se. They're the junior, they've always been the secondary force of the right, right? But if you look at it looks like a movement sometimes, not just a party, but a movement, because there is a lot of excited young people showing up at rallies that fill squares of like Trump would say, middle cities, right? The inner cities, like parties, medium-sized towns.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Like importantly, they're getting young people deep in Madrid and also deep in like you know, Montero, some of that.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

Yes, yes, yes, also here, and it's interesting because it has not eroded PP's support much, but it has eroded the left's support a lot. So it does seem like they are able to get boats away from the far left into their boater base.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

And which is a very interesting example of the horseshoe theory. I don't know the term you have in Spain where at some point the far left and the far right eventually meet and become the same thing, like a horseshoe type of situation. Harshoe theory. But the problem is they don't actually say anything similar to what the far left says. So that's why in this example, I don't think it's actually a harshoe example here, because they really do not talk the same way at all. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

There's no eat the reach dynamics here.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

Perhaps the similarity could be anti-free trade, but that is a caricaturization because at the European institutions they're not anti-free trade, but rather they want reforms on the free trade or not more free trade agreements for a while.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

They're very pro-deregulation of more sectors. It's not really that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

Yeah, so how what is it they resonate with? Well, with these voters. Well, first of all, there is a clash. Although Spain's been one of the most successful countries in integrating uh massive migration quickly, some elements of migration have been received more negatively in working class areas, and we're strictly, or not strictly, but mostly focusing on Muslim population living in Spain. There is a clash there, and only Vox will speak about maybe banning the use of burqa or not letting certain practices be allowed in Spain, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:05

So which is a very popular position of the common person in Spain.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

Yeah. And so Vox will say these things. Uh whereas the left in Spain, whether moderate, if there is such a thing, there is no such a thing as a moderate left in Spain these days, but the socialists and the communists in Spain, they have these wokey obsessions and they'll speak about identity politics all the time, and then they'll have their obsessions with the wokey obsessions. And you know what? To a regular guy who needs housing and he needs the streets to be clean and needs like no violence, and it's just like perhaps a bit more opportunity and less bad government in place, these guys sound like they could save their neighborhood. So these guys go and tour the neighborhoods, and people shake their hands and you know they get this very exciting people are excited when they show up in town. It's like the circus came to town, you know. It's like, hey, you're the only ones, you're the only guys fighting for us. Or like you're the you're the only guys that can save us. Like people in the countryside too. They react very positively to them. So yeah, that is why they are gaining ground. So they have eroded, I guess, PP by definition, because if Vox did not exist, one could argue 90% of their votes would be baked into the PP's polling intentions. But that's on PP, they love the votes, right? Exactly. And the way to recoup them is maybe harder for PP because now these guys can actually go and get votes that of younger people that could fed up with socialist governments, socialist policies, socialist decay, socialist corruption, but probably they do not feel that PP speaks to them and they do resonate with Vox. But sometimes I also challenge them not to become too cartoonish, right? Because I've even texted some of them like, hey, just you couldn't you say what you just said without swearing? Right? Like these things. You become. It's hard. You become. You can see how the party becomes a competition internally of who is going to become more relatable to the regular guy. Right? Trumpier than Trump. You know? So, like, yeah, Abascali's Abascaly's growing a bird and running a motorcycle and going to a bullfight. Doesn't mean every single guy in Vox needs to behave like that, but they do have this herd behavior to them.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Which is funny because Trump doesn't actually try to be normal. He very much likes being a rich guy that does normal things for media that makes it really clear this is a thing I'm doing for the media. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Yeah, but the point is the truck diver in Michigan loves him. Yeah. So these guys do not they're not billionaires, of course. By the way, they're the best dressed MPs in Congress, male or female.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Especially Ignacio Garenga, who we will get to at some point.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Yes. And or also, I mean, or like if you for women like Peppa Miyan is like a very elegant woman. Also Cayetana, PP's spokesperson, she's also very elegant. But I mean that like well-dressed guys in Congress, where today like wearing a tie is almost a revolutionary act for some on the left, right? A suit and tie. But on the streets, like they sometimes they trust, you know, they dress down. So I guess they are seem more relatable to folks out there. They've connected with young voters.

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Yes. And on the point of the no, where does the where do they where do they overlap with Pepe or not? We have a bit of analysis here to discuss. So if you go to page six on that document. Okay. So it gives a we did an analysis on the overlap of agreement and disagreement between the last two electoral programs of Fox and Pepe. This is the 2023 election. And very clearly, if you look at you know page six, the agreement is very strong on tax cuts, reindustrialization, anti-occupation, those kind of topics.

SPEAKER_03 46:03

Tone is very relevant before. Because we run this is an AI analysis, it's fantastic. Tone for PP is described as it really is, which is reformist, managerial, I would argue technocratic, but again, the word does not have the same connotation in English. So reformist, managerial, institutional. May I argue a bit bland and boring at times? Sure. Vox sounds like combative, sovereignty, civilizational, may I argue nationalistic and populist? Yes. Okay? So coming from this, like you say, there's many areas where there's strong overlap. Strong overlap. And those other areas where there is least of an overlap. And I think it makes sense to even go one by one. Well, not one by one, but like so tax cuts they agree with. Re-industrialize whatever that means, they talk about that both of them do. Like more corporate growth kind of thing. Anti-squatters. I know some of our listeners may not understand that this is an issue. Well, it's an issue in Spain. People break into their home and then you can't kick them out. Some people have to hire goons to like kick them out of their home because the chavs like to show up and just kick them out. Because if you go to the legal process, you stand up to lose thousands of euros, which you can just pay straight to the goons and kick these guys out, or wait for two years to get them legally out of their house. My parents are dealing with this right now in their secondary residence. And I told them, Go pay the goons. And they were like, Yeah, but that's not fully legal. And I'm like, Yeah, who cares? Like you you and now they're dealing with it. Yeah it's been more than two years. And I'm like, Well, told you so. Yeah, could be chilling at your other home, you paid for it, you work hard. I mean, God knows my dad. He started working for when he was 12, paid that little home for himself, he can enjoy it. And he quite because he didn't call the goons.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

So they they both say anti-squatters, judicial independence, anti-corruption, with everything. As we're recording this, prime minister, socialist prime minister between 2004 and 2011, Rodriguez Zapatero, the axis of evil, the worst of the worst, even worse than Sanchez. Like you think Sanchez Sanchez is the political son of Zapatero, right? He's been formally charged with very serious criminal charges. So we talk socialist corruption. We did a flash episode on it. There's just so much of it, right? So anti-corruption, pro-judicial independence, pro-family, pro-natality. Do they have a real solution for that? They just throw money at the problem. I wouldn't fix it, but yeah. In principle, they both stand for educational choice and tauncially anti-terrorists. So those areas fully agreement. Essentially almost complete agreement. So they have to meet like and be real to each other and stop the political calculation and the zero sum of like me winning you, winning votes away from you. These areas you get an agreement done in two minutes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Problem is. The problem is where they have sharp divergence. This is like immigration, of course, is the biggest one.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

And the immigration divergence is hilarious in some ways because the general Spanish population agrees with Vox when it comes to immigration. And Pepe, of course, Pepe Sue, Sumar, and the left wing, left wing cabal are against the population when it comes to immigration. So Vox isn't in some stark differentiation, some extremely external, extreme post. They're like saying, hey, let me just give what the normal person on the street wants when it comes to immigration. But Pepe now is saying, no, we have this grander view of immigration, and they're actually not sticking to what people want them to stick to. Which is in the same point, it's not an extreme position. Vox immigration policy has to make that very it's a no-law, it's a law and order position. Law and order, but also it's more of cultural integration. It's not anti-multiculturalism, it's those kind of things, you know, pro-Catholic conservative.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

And by the way, to be honest, Spain has taken in more than three million immigrants in the matter of four or five years. We're a 50 million people country, and most of these three million people are located in a series of areas. They just don't go to an empty lot of land, right? So it does make sense that migration would become a topic. And I would argue that Spain is a fairly tolerant society, fairly open. Very open, very tolerant. I will go for it and you on that. Okay. I just don't want to push it because you know what these days when I see how migration is a large concern, I second guess how open, how tolerant. But on on the net, I mean you're the immigrant here in the room, right? So you can attest that. In principle, most Paniarts are welcome to just letting one letting people in through an orderly process and letting them do their thing without it's a fact of life that when you walk around the streets in Madrid, it is not native-born balanced people on the street begging for money.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

It's a fact of life. Yes, yes, it's not some joke. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 51:22

So I would argue though, that we made this analysis based on the 2023 electoral remote. And I would argue that PP has shifted in the last six months widely on this topic. Okay? So does this give them credibility? Not necessarily, because now when they are striking regional government agreements, Vox is always branching out with their key clause. Everything we do together needs to respond to the priority of Spanish nationals, so we call this national priority.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Which I by the way, to this day, I cannot understand why this is controversial. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:08

But again, so but PP stutters when it hears this because there is a left-wing media saying, Oh, look, there's the fascist, there's the racist bit, and the PP is about to buy it. Look at them, buy it, right? From the racist.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

But it's nonsensical. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 52:25

But if if PP Yeah, but PP overreacts when they hear national priority, and they're like, This is why I think people don't trust PP.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Exactly. That's where I was going. Oh, well, it should be prioritized that public housing, that the tax money that Spanish people pay for public housing should prioritize Spanish citizens. Yes. That is the big controversy that PP is like, well, hold on. I'm not sure about that.

SPEAKER_03 52:50

No PP voters is against that. Exactly. But somehow, so so they made this big shift six months ago, roughly. When they realized that immigration was becoming a big problem because it was, you know, Spanish were more and more concerned with this. And more than the fact that it took them this long. It yeah, that that speaks volumes to the fact that when people do not when I say that box may have a ceiling, but they surely have a floor, and I refer to at least that 10%, is that these people have taken notice that shifting the PP machinery takes a lot. And committing PP to you know hardcore real reforms, real turnarounds, real turning points in certain areas of policy has become way more difficult than in the Aznar years, right? Or than in the region of Madrid, where Aguirre first or Ayusafers have no problem just doing a like pretty radical, good policy. But for PP, yes, they've even made this turn against you know disorder in the migration policy and so on. But then when Vox asks them to put their money where their mouth is and broker down an agreement in a region, and Vox throws out this national priority clause that needs to be a common thread in everything that the regional governments do, they get labeled racist, of course, by the left wing, and then there goes PP sort of wavering, tiptoe, tippy-toeing around them, saying, no, no, certainly not national priority. And then ultimately they take their votes and they do enact some of their suggestions, which, like you said, may be things like, okay, if you pay 50% of your salary in taxes, like de facto every worker in Spain does, when you factor in direct and indirect taxes and Social Security, you may as well want to receive access to healthcare prior to, you know, those who may have come illegally or may have come recently and could be made so to maybe have to at least pay for some of these free healthcare or contribute to that system in some pay and receive sort of way, right? And the idea that nationals would just be net contributors and foreigners would become net recipients, that's obviously going to not go very well with workers, especially if you have a socialist government which has led to the stagnation of wages in Spain. So you have in fact you have in real terms the decline of wages. Yeah, in real terms, you have 3% less pay today than before this government came when you compare equivalent full-time jobs. 3% less money, real terms, than in 2018. That is a massive decline. We've run the numbers at the Instituto Juan de Manuel. There's no other country in Europe with numbers like this. They're horrible. The only people doing well are pensioners, but you know, workers are getting killed by the taxes that fund this ever-growing pensions. And I know there's a topic in other European countries, but at least their salaries are growing less than pensions. And uh, but no, and pensions will go on a deficit of the future. No, no, pensions here are on a deaf deep deficit now, not 10 years from now, 20. No, they're in a deep deficit now. They've been on the hole for 15 years, and salaries are decreasing as pensions are increasing. So it gets to a point when young people turn against the system, they turn to Vox.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

And with the migration thing and the national priority bid, PP is again falling into the but it feels also feels like Pepe only made this recent pivot because of the recent uh regularization.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

Well, let's be honest here, they did do it in the fall of 2025. I feel that was a tentative, I mean to a tweet. No, no, well, they did present a strategy. So I I I think the trigger for them is that suddenly immigration became the biggest concern of Spaniards along with housing, and it was a big jump after the last summer. Okay. Right? So coming into the fall, into the new season, quote unquote, of politics, in the fall, when you kind of reshape what you're going to be talking about, they did reposition themselves. But surely now Sanchez has called for a broad illegal amnesty with no control, no guarantees. Sorry, amnesty for illegal immigrants, not illegal. Because he's done an amnesty for political leaders around the coup d'etat in Catalonia, and that amnesty is clearly.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Given the number of people that potentially can regularize after being in Spain illegally, you know, maybe for months. Months, five months, whatever. Uh it was here at least five months, I think when number was in December. Just show that you have a phone line. No, no documentation at all. No criminal record, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing at all.

SPEAKER_03 57:46

I was sorry, sorry to interrupt you. I was on a car uh and uh driving on the southern skirts of Madrid, and I was listening to like a not just local, but like a district level uh radio station, and they were playing ads of are you illegal? Do you need some help with your papers? Come on, we'll fix them for you. You'll be legal in three months. Well, I can see how if I'm a neighbor of these I saw billboards, yeah. Yeah, these yeah, well, you've seen them too. Yeah, well, I can see how like that could upset some people. I've seen ads online. Yeah, that there's there's lines in in the healthcare services, lines in the educational.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

There's a thing. So people people might hear, okay, well, Rashid, you're an immigrant, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. See, one important thing is this I feel like legal immigrants also are almost more upset, I think, than citizens. That's a very US thing. Yeah, also true. But I'm trying to do things in the bureaucracy and I can't do shit because it's completely clogged up. But all the legal immigrants know trying to regularize all the people.

SPEAKER_03 58:51

They did the same treatment you got in Paraguay.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

So those dynamics. So because that happened, I I should we uh we should point out that when uh Sanchez and Sumar and that that cabal did the regularization plan, uh um rule, which is done by decree, not by a parliament. Yeah, there was a rally. It was um was it was who's her Irene Montero? She was who did a rally where she was saying, Yes, we need these new people come into Spain to get the fascists out of numbers.

SPEAKER_03 59:24

Well, Elon Musk has tweeted about this because the Spanish left wing is openly saying we're losing the next election, but if we give paper to illegals, they'll be grateful to us and vote us in the next.

SPEAKER_00 59:37

It's the literal replacement theory of the conspiracy far right being acted out in front of your face with video cameras.

SPEAKER_03 59:45

We have a common friend, Juan Navarrete, he's the vice director of Fan de Mariana, and he's he likes Chico de Pueblo. Yeah, he likes uh yes, pretty much a somewhere person, right? But uh, we love him, and uh he he would tell you like so much for things being conspiracies because sometimes you know many of them get proven right, so like hold on here. Like this big replacement theory, yeah, right, sounds well. I'm watching it and following my with my own eyes.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:13

Yeah, the minister was former minister and current MEP in your paper said, hey, we want to replace and the minister and her number two.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:22

Like this is Podemos, right? The smaller communist party right now, it was funded by the Venezuelan regime, by the way. And they're openly saying we are doing this to replace locals, uh, get a better result in the election, and just just get away with a swing that's leaning right and just swing votes back to the left.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:42

It's it's it's completely crazy. It's completely crazy, insane actually. But again, this is the this is the current, this is like a few months ago. This is the dynamic that we're now having in immigration debate. So it's not just simply, again, some people coming in, yes, they're illegal, but no, it's it's a much more dramatically wide tapestry of conversation now. Yeah. And I still think Vox is the only party, maybe ironically, even, the only party that has a sane position on immigration. Yes, Pepe is now coming. Well, I used to imagine it has a bit more rationality than Pepe generally in on the topic. But at least now Pepe National is coming coming a bit closer to common sense, I would say. But Voss was there before, and Vots is still further into the consensus of immigration than Pepe.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:34

Yeah, by the way, I was just cracking up internally as I was because when you said common sense, I recall when they were coming up the ranks, they would be challenged to define themselves politically, and they told them, Are you extreme right? And they would always, all of them choreographed, they always answer, no, we're extremely necessary. So they would say that like pirates, but that was a fun line. But yeah, immigration, that is the issue. Whatever we name now is a non-issue in Spanish politics compared to immigration and housing and corruption.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

But to be clear, immigration is a latent issue in healthcare, in housing, in all these kinds of insecurity, all these kind of things.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:19

Exactly. So Spain is one of the safest countries in Europe, but crime rates have increased, and the data would show that roughly 50% of serious crimes are committed by immigrants. So I guess it is a reasonable call to deport illegal or legal aliens that are committing serious crimes.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

I would say immigration also underlies another social topic that comes up with the ideology question, which is LGBT. I hate that term by the way, I don't like saying that. But gay rights and it's becoming more like an abecedario because it's like it you keep adding L G B T Q I D A H W X Y N Q, who cares, right? I prefer to say gay rights, but I get in trouble, but I say that too. Any case, you're seeing now the shift because actually of immigration, but especially Muslim immigration to Spain, of much more young gay people shifting to the right because they're like, I cannot be walking around Barcelona and being harassed for being gay in Barcelona. That's okay. It's like that's a great Barcelona pronunciation, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:30

So I can see how three years in Spain.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

It's like that is the thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:37

You know what's wild to me? This is gonna get me in trouble. But young women in Spain predominantly still are the only social demographic group that has not clearly made the right-wing shift. Okay, so in other countries, I know there is a gender divide. No, not that not necessarily the case in Spain, there isn't such a thing as a gender divide in that men vote for the right more than women, and women vote for the left more than men in Spain on rough terms, but on comparable terms, because in relative terms, because in reality there's more right-wing people in Spain, period. But the fact that among young Spanish women, the topic of immigration and especially the dynamics of Muslim migration in some areas where there is a notorious, significant rise in sex crimes, sex offenses, such as violent armed robberies, similar, and which is directly tied with migration from three four countries, predominantly Morocco, but not limited to Morocco. But in reality, it's three four countries that represent a minority of migration and an overwhelming majority of crime. And if you give it 30 seconds and you pick this up from me, I'll read some numbers that that will amaze our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:08

So yeah, the gender topic is in my view a surprising dark horse that came up to the floor recently when it comes to political split, where we saw a very sharp increase in conversation when a journalist here in Spain named Juan Ivaro Soto, or Juan Soto Ivaras, he published a book called This Does Not Exist.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:30

Oh yeah. Well, before we jump on that one, like Barcelona. Data has been shared by the police forces at last. Right? This was never shared, like crime was not discussed by a country of origin. So you could make calculations and I know Vox is working on a report about this topic and they it would probably come out soon. Looking at the exact percentages and from what I've heard when what they've let me know the numbers are very serious. But in the city of Barcelona, 70% of sexual crimes and close to 90% of violent crime around the street, and 85% of petty crime, as in steal your phone, steal your wallet, is done by illegals. Sorry, not illegals, not necessarily illegals, by foreigners.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:32

Okay. And when you narrow it down, because there's like millions of foreigners in Spain, the fact is this is a minority and it's essentially Moroccans and from other the first people who should rally against these minorities are Moroccans themselves. Because they are going to become a scapegoat as a group that's going to be dealing with the bad actions of bad actors within the group. But the local, the official communities of Moroccans in Spain like denounce racism against them whenever these numbers are thrown out. And it's not just Moroccans, but it's predominantly Moroccan crime. So I'm sorry, it's numbers, they're out. This report that the Censo is doing is based on the Fox think tank, it's based on official data. So there will be no rebuck, no debunking that. And that is going to be a conversation changer. And I know it's coming out soon. Right. Because they I'm a journalist, they you know do tease you on when they're publishing things. But whenever it's coming out, I'm telling you, that's coming out of Abascal's mouth. And when he shares these numbers, you won't be able to dispute them because those are what the numbers were. That's what the police are saying. So we had our conversation about the media in Spain. There's an episode with Tape as well about the media landscape and how to understand it. And I singled out the objective as very good investigative reporting. And they were able to access one-day records of detainees, right? You're innocent. Detainees. In in legal terms, you're just detained. It doesn't mean you've committed a crime. But on a regular day, three quarters were immigrants. So I mean, these numbers are painting. Sure, there could be police bias against immigrants and a self-reinforcing cycle as well. Because if more illegals commit these sort of crimes, then you're also more likely to arrest an immigrant, and then some innocent people get detained and they shouldn't. Okay, so do not take that word as an absolute. But the size of foreign-born population is 15%, roughly speaking. So if it was homogeneous, we'd be talking percentages around 10, 20%, and we're talking 16%, 50%, 70%, 80. That's very simple.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:42

But as I said, even we felt things about quote unquote crying per se. There's the people on the street begging for money. People on the street sleeping on the street is all foreign people. They're not Spanish people, you know. And that even if it's just that, that alone leaves a toll on you when it comes to thinking about the drain they have on society.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:03

Absolutely. And of course, like it'd be such a shame to lose our integration model because Spaniards and Spaniards migrated because Spain was a poor country for most of the 20th century, to be honest. I'm gallego of Galician descent, as I've mentioned dozens of times in the show. Spaniards in Argentina are sometimes labeled gallegos because there were so many of them, right? So Gallego is actually a synonym for Spaniard in Argentina. But we may be, but I'm not tackling this head on as Vox is advocating. Spain may actually find itself in a position it shouldn't be. Because, for example, take Venezuelans. There's literally hundreds of thousands of them that have come into Spain. Their labor participation rate is crazy. It's almost 90%. You don't get that anywhere. It's the most hard-working people ever. Like these guys have learned the horrors of socialism and they came here for work, right? And it's all over Madrid.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:03

I must say, I like my barber, he's Venezuelan. I like talking with him because you know, usually when you have a conversation about anti-socialist policy, there was like some intellectual group or some that have degrees this and degrees that. But he's a barber and he's like, oh, these damn socialists are causing problems.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:22

Yeah. It ran them out of their country, eight million people. Yeah. The average Venezuelan that stayed has lost on average 15 kilograms. So it's hunger. It's death. That's what socialism will do. But yeah, so immigration. So we'll we'll move beyond immigration. Immigration is that we're going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:38

I'm about to bring up very interesting topic. The gender violence, gender law, gender topics in general is a even a bigger disagreement between Vox and Peipe than immigration. Go figure. Almost impossible to understand that. But to highlight how this topic is again, these are 2023 numbers, but even more stark now. There was a book recently published by a pretty popular journalist here I mentioned earlier. And who's a very I find him a very interesting journalist. Definitely not a right-wing person by any definition of that term. But he published a book.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:23

Sorry, for a center-left guy anymore. So that's why you get labeled a fascist.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:29

Yeah. And more literary. Yeah. And he published a book called This Does Not Exist, but in Spanish. This does not exist. And it went to three editions in three weeks. Yeah. That's unreal.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:41

So what does not exist? What does this topic or book argue? Well, Spain has anti-gender violence laws. Which in principle one would argue like, how could you be against a gender violence law, right? The problem is the way in which it was drafted was governed by this mentality that the we should just, you know, always trust any sort of claim of gender violence and take it from there. But by default, you're guilty, in this case, a man, you're guilty if until proven innocent. Massive display will be done on you, so policemen will show at your door, you will be left out of legal counsel and questioned by the police and be there for hours. Then whenever you do have the chance to uh exercise your right, you will be fighting an uphill battle from there. So this has become an issue for the following reason. Out of every hundred claims started by women in Spain that claim that they have suffered gender violence, less than 20% of these cases make it into court. That is a huge gap. And the fact that there is so many legal asymmetries between men and women in a dynamic that lands 80% of men on preventive jail for something that won't even go in front of a judge. That is some serious talk. Right? And no one is disputing that hey, there is ex-witness, ex-medical proof, ex-evidence, just enough, the slightest chance should be enough to hold that guy up and take it from there and see his rights. But of course, take what happened very seriously. We've just done the complete opposite. There is a slogan among Spanish feminists, socialist feminists, that is always trust what women say, but unfortunately in human affairs, especially in divorce situations and separation or breakups, these claims have become part of legal strategies that give you leverage to negotiate custody, to negotiate assets, asset uh you know, asset uh allocation among former uh husband and wife and so on. So these and when people would argue many of these claims are fraudulent, they are not based on enough evidence to even make it to court, they're just thrown away as soon as whatever claims are examined by a judge, and feminists, socialists would argue, well, you're arguing that there's fake allegations going on massively. This is not true, this does not exist, or this is just a very small percentage. When you crunch the numbers, you realize that at the end of the day, one out of every ten guys that is accused of this is just an asshole who really uh deserves the harsh treatment that a law like this provides with. But eight to nine of them are either 100% innocent or cannot be proven guilty under a rule of law scenario. So therefore we have to understand that they are innocent, right? And so the fact that PP is not willing to discuss this law at all has given Vox a lot of disgruntled male voters the opportunity to see, well, they're willing to talk about this, and there's hundreds of thousands of men who have gone through a bad divorce and a bad separation, and hundreds of thousands of men that have faced these claims that were maybe taken back later, but yeah, they were used as leverage over these disputes.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:55

Yeah, again, it's one of the surprising topics that become now a political divide. No one I thought will have seen this coming five, ten years ago for sure, but now this is one of these dark things between PP and Vox. It's shocking how yeah, Pepe really doesn't do anything on this at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:15

I've argued though that the Libertad Digital Instituto Juan de Mariana and the other intellectual circles are essentially saying what PP will eventually say in 10-15 years, right? So that drag is a big opportunity for Vox because they surely pick up on things quicker. And they're more therefore in tune with the regular voter of the center right in many of these topics. So with the uh gender violence law, it's I mean, these statistics have been available for a long time. You can clearly see an overwhelmingly higher number of claims versus the number of proper legal processes that get started, and even a smaller amount by definition of people that get condemned as a result of a process like this. And sure, like we all support the harshest treatment for criminals, but what about that 85% or so of cases that don't even make it to court? They're just instrumental in many cases. We should think about how to by the way, the number of women that report suffering domestic violence, which is by the way, comparatively low in Spain to other European countries. By the way. So one should like, of course, we can see like okay, so poverty is lower than it's everybody. Yeah, but there should never be poverty. Okay, I get that. There should never be domestic violence either. But you need to look at trends, right? So Spain has way lower domestic violence rates than other European countries. Certainly, northern countries, northern European countries that are often seen as you know, civilized, I guess, than as savage Mediterraneans have much higher numbers of domestic violence rates. And yeah, also the number of women that unfortunately have been killed by their male partner has remained very stagnant. Similar numbers in the last 15-20 years, in spite of the fact that there's been literally billions of money poured into propaganda or programs that, to be honest, they don't really tackle the specifics of women who need help, but rather they just tackle men as horrible monsters that need to be retrained.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:38

Mother feminism, it's not about helping people. Come on, come on, Diego.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:42

So you find these very sad stories of this woman was killed today by her partner, and she had started legal action against him. She had warned, she had gotten a legal warrant to uh ask this person to be away from her, and there's some electronic devices that should be attached to you to both parties to allow any kind of physical interaction between them and uh enact that decision by the judge if he's preemptively out of jail or whatever, and women get killed. And it then turns out that this socialist government bought those electronic device systems that did not work on the AliExpress discount shop. This government left a thousand sex offenders either enjoy a reduction of their penalties or just go out of jail completely for poorly designed quote-unquote feminist laws to quote unquote protect women. So, considering all of this is true, and I now pose a question Spanish young women, I mean, which way do you want to go? Yeah because who's protecting you right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

I I think I told you I had a conversation with a friend of my husband, yeah, and she mentioned to me, oh well, yeah, I vote for Pesoa because Pesoa is a center party. You sometimes hear some things where like you can't be angry, you can't laugh, you just have to just stay silent. I could have never thought someone could be that insane about politics.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:16

I just listen, Kenny Rogers in my head singing the gambler, I'll just keep a straight face, you never come to Germania as you're sitting on the table.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:23

It's truly bizarre.

unknown 1:20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:25

But onto another point of critical divergence between Pepe and Vox is the EU and the role of the EU in Spain, and just in the general concept of the European Union. I think here is a good point to mention one of the key Vox ideologues, as one would call him, uh Jorge Buchale. It's an MEP. MEP, he's from Catalan, from Catalonia. He is also one of the people who is pointed as really again in the media, in the left-wing media, as a really terrible, insane fascist. That he's the perfect platonic ideal of why Vox is an evil party.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:07

To be honest, I don't think he will deny this. If you track his beginnings in politics, he was tied to some what could be very easily labeled as more far-right groups. But so was Giorgio Maloney. So people do evolve or change. So I will say that when he gets labeled a falangista, which is a Spanish term, acket to fascist, I've heard him joke about this and introduce himself to a libertarian common friend of both you and I. So there is some, um so he'll joke about it, so he's aware of that. And yeah, there is his political youth was spent in some of these circles.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:51

Again, that is not the same interpretation that when you hear the word fascist, yeah, that you dominate. So they're very different.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:58

I was just clarifying, like to be honest, journalists, there is some you can't talk about Maloney without understanding her life. Of course, right? So Bush had this life also of that. You know what? He's an extremely well-read guy, right? He's a state lawyer, like this mayor of Madrid, who we've mentioned, his PP. So these are really smart guys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:17

Top the cream of the elite in many ways in Spain. The uh credentialed as the cream of the elite in Spain. Qualify as a technocrat in the good sense. Yeah, but in Spain they have these really intense exams you have to pass to be cream of the crop. To be a state lawyer, he is in the top group.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:37

Yeah. So I must say there's too many of them doing policy these days. Not because I don't like policy, yes. But because we need a balance, right? So there's a lot of state attorneys and a lot of public workers. But we need entrepreneurs and there's none. We need investors, there's none. We need some intellectuals, some disruptors, boxes, hermenters.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:57

Listen, that's not the fault of the state attorneys if the other people don't join in. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:02

Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, I'm not joining. These guys know it. PP knows it.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:07

But knows they've tried. But Buchade. He was also a lecturer in law, for example, in an university in Catalonia, one of the best in the country. And he had a blog, but also he wrote a couple of books recently, yes, a couple actually last year or year before, about certain topics, sovereignty, globalism, somewhere anywhere. Yeah, literal dynamics of this podcast. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:31

I think I mean you've met him, I've met him. He's an interesting character. If you just buy the propaganda, it's very simplistic. If you meet Bushade, you may not agree with uh everything he says, you may disagree with most of what he says, but regardless of your position, he is a very smart guy, and he's not just throwing stuff out there to see what sticks.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:51

He knows what he's saying, and he Yeah, as I mentioned, if you read the book Globalismo, which is globalism, again, he didn't just fart that book like he didn't. The covers like it looks like propaganda, like you don't agree, like Frank, Agostin Lachie, who's a famous like girl.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:06

These guys, right? Ludwig von Mises, and he's got his commented notes on human action.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:11

Yeah, but if you read globalism, it's like he has like citations of articles in European treaties. Oh, yeah. These are very he his arguments are detailed arguments. Again, you might not have to agree with everything he says, but I think most of what he says is correct, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:27

On the margin, we had disagreements, but on the court I don't think anyone like on the left can enter a room and debate him without restoring to name calling, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:37

Impossible. Impossible. He's too he's too concrete, he's too credible in in the arguments. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:42

And if you're a libertarian, free marketer, uh classical liberal, uh, and if you stand for free trade, for example, uh he'll he'll challenge you on some because he knows the dynamics of free trade agreements and he'll say yes, but and he'll know very precisely over I think this is an important detail where when liberals usually talk about free trade, they don't talk about free trade agreements.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:06

Yeah. It's a very important detail. Exactly. So he talks about free agreements as they exist in the world.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:12

Yes, exactly. Yes, so that's that that makes him an interesting character for sure, and he's become very relevant. There's uh an intellectual, there's a high-ranking MEP in Brussels. His name is Hermann Tirst. He was a very German, also Austrian name to be precise. He was the face of the new show of the Madrid TV station for a long time. He was in El País, so he comes from a left-wing newspaper background. He was a war correspondent in the Balkans, so he's lived 40 lives, right? So there's room for him in Vox 2, and he's a high-ranking MEP. So they're an interesting bunch. There's economic spokesperson.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:54

We mentioned him earlier.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:56

Economics spokesperson, Figaro, also a very qualified lawyer, very familiar with international arbitration, which is an area in which I do a lot of consultancy work. So it's easy for it's hard for me to come across politicians that fully understand international arbitration, its dynamics, its systems, its enforcement, litigation, it's complex. We've uh taped an episode with Ashley Mesick, who is even an expert on the enforcement of international arbitration, right? So with Figueroa or with Rubén Manso, who, by the way, was left out of Vox when Ivane Spinoza was run out, but who was a very eloquent economics uh guy for Vox for a long time. But he was so we've said good things about them, uh, some bad things, but let's say this as is. These guys don't like dissent one bit. So you dissent with them. Like it's funny that their foundation is called dissenso, because you get kicked out. We get to that, but but but the only two politicians that I entered a room and fully see them understand international arbitration and get what it this is, and get what it is we're talking about, were the former number two in the economics department of Fox, this Rubem Manso, who's since been run out, and Figaro, who's their current number one guy on economics. So they do have qualified people.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:16

They do have very qualified people. So is the EU. So again, so it is where Vox also has a very dramatic divergence between Pepe on the EU topic and Bouchade, who is the main EU guy for Vox, who's the head of the Vox delegation in the EU parliament, is a very key feature of this person, of this role that Vox plays in the EU. So, because of that, when you think about what they think about the EU, this is always framed as oh, they want to potentially leave the EU and things like that. That's not what they're discussing. They're discussing hey, the original treaties as they were designed, as Spain signed them to join the EU, should be respected. This kind of overreach, this overextension, this lack of the in in in legal terms, as Bouchard will use them, this non-adherence to the principle of subsidiarity of the treaties is something we cannot let to completely slide over time.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:17

I agree with. And I think that uh if you take a look at where he's coming from with many of these arguments, he's very technical, too. He's very technical. But he would make it logical.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:30

Also, he's right. This is the part he is correct. It's the important detail. He is correct.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:35

He is extremely right. Not just extreme right. That's the gold water in the back in the 60s. Try to spin the fact that he was being legally.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:45

A lot of the things that people talk about the EU for as being doing too much stuff. Yeah, I agree with all those arguments. It's doing too much stuff. And on the flip side, as I mentioned all the time on the podcast, the member states themselves need to actually take on the rings of sovereignty, do the work, and stop outsourcing the blame and escape, gotten the blame K RQ. So essentially, Boucher is saying, no, no, these are our problems. We have to solve them by our own solutions. And I'm like, what is the controversy here? Well, the controversy is in the PP and the EPP philosophy, they actually don't have a view of this kind of concept. They think everything can be solved more integration, more rules, more Europe, more Europe.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:32

This is not necessarily the case. In fact, we need less Europe in some areas. Yeah, you need a lot less Europe in many areas. So climate or green policy, we've listed that as another area of disagreement, and it's very connected to Brussels.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:46

Yeah, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:47

Because Brussels has led a failed uh climate agenda, which is most if you ever could conceive such a thing as industrial suicide, you would just draft the European Green New Deal. God knows we're not a high growth economy in Europe these days, and for a few decades now. We don't have many fast-growing modern industries, but we do have a cart making industry, a car manufacturing industry that is serves our own domestic market and is also competitive outside of it. So you would think the last thing you want to do is to punish that industry, but then again, European elites went ahead with that. Local elites, in this case PPM Socialist Party leaders, just sign off on that. We even set a deadline of combustion engines on cars, which were supposed to not be sold anymore in just a few years' time.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:56

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:01

But the that minute jobs began being cut, investments stopped being done, offshoring began to take place, and many growth projects that could have been developed just went down the toilet. And regardless of the EU now rolling this back and party parties at the national level reconsidering this, no one's going to pay with this because they're for this because there's no skin in the game. What would be the penalty for Ursula von der Leyen and her team for doing this? Doing this to the European economy. And partly and Spain, sorry, Spain's output depends on 10% of GDP on car making. It's huge. There's entire cities that depend on car making. Vigo, for example, in Galicia, Pamplona in Navarra, there's areas in Valencia, in Catalonia, Valladolid. These are industrial powerhouses where working class people can still get good salaries and stable jobs in stable industries, and all of this has been destroyed by EU regulatory policy, which PP and Pesoe agreed with at the European level and have not questioned at the national level. So Vox has picked up and workers realize that.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:31

Vox was out against this topic from the beginning in the EPP. Sorry, in the European Parliament, against the EPP. They've been on that topic. So Bushade led that charge in the European Parliament, and they're pushing that stuff also domestically with Santiago and so on here in Spain. But that, yeah, this divergence is also key. It's the same idea of the EU role versus non-eurole. But yeah, VOS has been again on the common sense vote on this particular issue again, way before trying to kind of recalculate and say, oh, maybe we shouldn't get rid of all in combustion engines. And because then this is EPP, the biggest party in the European Parliament. It's where Pepe is.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:13

It's killing one of Europe's largest industries and killing Spain.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:18

And if I may this brings us to the European Parliament dynamics that Vox has followed since its inception, right? So it was not elected for European Parliament back when it was first founded, as we said. 2015 was when they first ran. But then they eventually get elected in the next election, and they have had a good result in the following European election. So there is a large group of Vox MEPs in Brussels, right? But originally they sat with the British Tories under European Conservative and Reformist group, which is now essentially led by Georgia Maloney and her Fratelli d'Italia party. So these were the more moderate elements of the European New Alternative Right Parties or whatever you want to call them. And I thought that was a very good move. And I thought the European Conservative and Reformist group better represented what the what they were trying to signal here at home. Now since then, Ria Simblon in France, the Marine Le Pen Party, which is no longer only led by her, but exactly. So Bordella has begun its face. The Urban Party, which was a member of the Popular Party, and other elements that sort of sit as well on the alt-right spectrum, have created their own political party for the European Parliament, which is known as the Patriots Group. And since then, Vox made the jump away from ECR and into Patriots. So there is room for consolidation, and these two could become a very large group in the European Parliament if they were to get together. The Polish Peace Right PIS, which was in Golden for very long time. Yes. Could very well favor a movement of sorts in this direction, but we'll see. But that's interesting to say that Vox did pivot and went from ECR to the Patriots Group.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:39

I think it's also worth noting that Abascal is also the president now of the Patriots EU group. Not in the European Parliament, because he's not in the European Parliament, but the general European group outside of the literal parliamentary people. Abascal is the official president of that group. And as we know from speaking to people from Vox and Patriots, we know that one thing they like a lot inside the Patriots group is the fact that Vox has this opening to the Latin American community. It's a big market that they also can see themselves with more allies than just being in Europe itself.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:20

And by the way, I've Georgia Maloney spent Christmas at Abascal's home here in Madrid. Famous photos, yes. They're not members of the same European Parliament. But that's clearly telling you something. There's a lot of synergies between Patriots stands for a bit more radical, a lot more populist in many areas for sure, and what the ECR represents. But ultimately, voters for ECR parties and Patriots parties probably overlap in many cases. So sometimes the ECR party from X, I mean, maybe the Patriots member from Poland, it's not large, but that's because the ECR member from Poland is the Law and Justice Party, which is the largest party there. Or maybe there's no the Patriots member from Italy. I don't know if they have one. Maybe it's the League, the Northern League. Yeah, so yeah, it's a junior part, but that's because yeah, the ECR has a larger coalition members. And then I don't know if Patriots has, sorry, if ECR has a French member. I guess uh if they did would be someone like Edic Zemur or something like this, but anyway, Bordella, that's why, because the Patriots member, Bardella, Le Pen, they're the largest group in France. So consolidation makes sense, if you ask me. And they would be larger than the Socialist Party.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:42

They'll be also larger than EPP.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:45

Yeah. They would like, yeah, too. They're right now the third biggest party. And they could that could lead them to actually lead the chart. That's right. By the way, that means that they can have a lot of say over negotiations over how to form the commission, and then the commission could be run elsewhere. But I mean, we're not calling that it's going to happen. We're just saying No, if it were to if these are big if deep ifs here. If all right-wing parties in Europe united, they would be squash.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:13

But even if it no, truly, if it was ECR and Patriots, of course, and also ND, not ESN, like AFD. If they were to come together, that would be the biggest group in the European Parliament. We have a substantially different European Union outright. But of course, insularity and various competences.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:38

Leave it there for fun and we'll see what happens in the future. It is true, however, that PP lately has been striking agreements in Parliament with these two groups.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:49

So, yeah, so there have been some regional elections recently in Spain. In particular, we're gonna focus on Aragon, Estramadura, and then we're gonna talk about Castilla Mansion, the potential option too. But yeah, what happened at Extremadura?

SPEAKER_03 1:39:02

Or Andalus, yeah, for sure, right? I will get to that. That's where most story short. PP wins all of these elections that have taken place, and it does not gain an absolute majority in either of them. Um PP's performance, however, was good in Extremadura, got better in Aragon, got better in Castilla Leon, and then it was worse in Andalusia. So there's not a very recurrent trend there. Vox did very well in Extremadura, did okay, did well in Aragon, did so and so in Castilla-Leon, and also kind of uh yeah, not a lot of growth in Andalusia. So the main takeaway here is that these guys hurt each other whenever they start negotiating power. I think it's hurting Vox the most, but that's kind of the bear hag theory, right? When there's a bigger guy in the room, gives you the bear hug, squashes you, right? So for Vox to turn big words into concrete action is proving tricky. And PP is pushing negotiations to the limit with them. Should they? From the ideas perspective, people are outraged. Why is PP forcing Vox to make this hard on PP by being so hard on Vox? But politics, it's a zero-sum game. And beyond ideas, like these people are trying to salvage their organization, which does want to thrive as opposed to their rivaling faction, which is Vox, right? So if you're just talking ideas, I think these regional governments could be formed oversimplifying things in a matter of minutes. I'm not saying that, but it should take just a couple of long meetings, a couple of afternoons, some beers, some wine, or what just some food. Just a weekend, just a nice weekend of five well-chosen guys, maybe get one representative from the national party to be present, and then just four regional leaders just meet out, fight a little bit, but just let's get this done. Leave the weekend with the agreement done. But then the national parties get in. So Vox sometimes signals, okay, fight this some more, fight it to the end. And then it becomes detrimental for Vox. Or maybe PP says, no, don't give in. Like tease that you're willing to go for another election if there's gridlock. And then they lose power. So these dynamics are hurting the center right a lot. Because every focus should be on the Socialist Party, its corruption, its horrible economic performance, and how rotten the entire picture of Spanish politics is because of Pedro Sánchez and everything around him. And because of this, daily political gossip is about how PP and Vox, although they win, and they should be celebrating, and the socialists are getting their worst results in history in many of these regions, but you know they're not leveraging all of that because then the bickering begins, the infighting begins, the dynamics between them have become quite toxic. And Feyjo tried to soften this recently by opening by sharing an open letter, which essentially gives authority to PP leaders at the regional level to just essentially say yes to most of Box's recurrent demands.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:03

But Volt had a very negative reaction to that open letter. Yeah, because in particular.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:26

And you're making this extremely hard because you won't give us X, Y, and C. PP has noticed that if they give X, Y, and C, they'll get criticized from the left for whatever they do. But his their voters won't be opposed to that. Indifferent voters that could swing PP or Vox, either way, will actually like that. Which they're not, or voters are not, definitely. And Vox suddenly has less areas of difference to pick from. So we were naming some. And immigration, that is no longer such a big divide as it was when the manifestos were done for the past election. The EU politics dynamics and the climate agenda in the Europe, that gap has become smaller in the last year. The dragie report, the criticism, the new agreements at the European Parliament level, etc. Gender violence law that hasn't changed because you know. This doesn't exist. And the territorial model, which is something they don't agree with, because A, PP believes in a decentralized Spain and Vox does not believe in it. Vox does not believe in it, but Vox will never, I mean, no party will ever have a majority to change Spain's territorial status. Pepe would. Yeah, well, Pepe could.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:43

And they have the majority and they believe decentralized state.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:47

So there's no way for Spain not to have a decentralized state. Period. So Vox has, in general terms, argued against it. In practical terms, it stands for a regional election. If you're an atheist of this, you would just say, no, no, we're not, we're not partaking in this. There was talk at first of Vox not running in regional elections to just be a national movement, but clearly they did not decide that. And by the way, Vox has an issue here. Suddenly, they're joining coalition governments, but they have to make hundreds of appoints of appointments. Uh, do they have the political, you know, community talent, well-trained talent? I don't know if they do. Like they'll have to find a lot of people who've been active activists. They've been activists, right? They've been active in party politics, but does that translate into you know the ability to massage?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:36

I think surprisingly, you've been very positive about Vox this entire episode. Surprisingly. But this part of Vox really is a problem. And this is the same problem that most of these new establishment writer, center parties across Europe have. Reform has the same problem right now in the UK. Yes, you sprung up relatively quickly, but you don't have the institutional infrastructure to support the actual party management. I mean, and now you're in government. Who are you gonna appoint? Farage was a single issue.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:11

Correct. Party, movement, leadership, state of mind for the United Kingdom, right? So it was either in or out of the EU, and that was it. Managing councils and national government, does Vox can reform do that in the UK? Can Vox do that here? Well, they've had negative experiences in regional governments, but they've also argued that they were not smart in the negotiation table. So it's hard because they do think they were not smart the last time. Then voters don't like the fighting. Don't like it from PP, but they don't like it from Vox. Overall problem here being I'm not a PP guy, I'm not a Vox guy, I'm just a classical liberal in Spain. I don't need these two guys fighting every day over the smallest of things while I have the devil governing my country, right? So that is an issue. And part of the reason why some people may speak that Vox has peaked lately, but surely we heard that before when they had 60 seats in national parliament, they went down to 45, but now they stand to go to like 70 or 80, so careful what you say. Also, if young generations support Vox massively, what the dynamic show. Yeah, well, that means that although some of them may become more of moderates with time, the taboo of voting for Vox is not going to be there. So once you voted Vox, it's easier for you to Vox again throughout your life, maybe not always, but remain an option for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:55

Also, to be fair, Vox in many ways has also become more moderate as a party, especially even on social issues. Now the LGBT topics, the abortion topics, but they've been that association they have been so much against quote-unquote gay marriage and these things, it's not really there anymore by any reasonable people. Only far extreme left use that argument. So Vox itself has lost that like extreme tinge, and now it's already seen as a more moderated party.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:28

And we did touch on the gay marriage debate within PP in our PP episode and how that they have that same is a non-issue today for PP or Vox. That's no no one's discussing that. So that's why things have become more about uh power dynamics, and that's how when things get nasty, because that that that means that you're fighting for power. So that's where we'll leave it for today. I think that's been a very thorough discussion of the history of Vox. But I think that the one question that I do want to throw out there is that Abascal's leadership has remained unchallenged, internal dissent has not been tolerated much, so most critical voices have been essentially being shown the door. What does Vox look like in 10 years? And what does Vox eventually look like without Avascal on top?

SPEAKER_00 1:49:22

Because you would But Diego, hold on. I while that is a silly question, I'm still unsure what Vox looks like in two years.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:32

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying that we think that some people say Vox is a movement around a leader, and leaders have an expiration date. Also, Avascal, which we have not mentioned, Avascal doesn't do a lot of media. In fact, he doesn't do a lot of public appearances. He gives his speeches in Congress whenever there's a session, and then he's kind of He chooses very smartly where he goes and he's not over represented in the media, but a bit more out is working, but he's not proactively trying to be everywhere and trying to be simple.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:14

I feel that is also true of Fejol, for example. I feel like in in Spain the leaders are pretty strategic in where they do their kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:22

Fejol is doing a meeting every day with taking a picture, shaking some hand, kissing some baby, like so it's abascado, not on Twitter. No, no, no, no. Like he'll send a couple of tweets, but like there you could literally go days and days without seeing him in public. That that is that that is like that's why you don't watch Spanish TV, sure. Which I've praised you for. But if you did, because there's nothing valuable really on TV, but uh or not much. But if you there's literally many days in which you don't you you can hear something from box, someone from box will be saying something somewhere, but not Abascal. Uh so I'm just saying that some people thought the Le Pen movement in France would was a Jean-Marie Le Pen platform, then his daughter brought it to new heights. She was horrible in many areas, like I disagree with her, many, specifically economics, by the way. And then Berdella is made the party even more popular. So careful with just assuming that yes, it's a personalistic party, yes, they've run on the descent, so yes, I get it. Abascal is going to be relevant for long, and he's a founder of the party, so why shouldn't he be in a way? It's his shop, right? But for all the criticism they take, who's saying that this is like people sometimes feel like this Vox will go away like Ciudadanos did. Well, Vox has been around since 2018, it's pulling the highest it's ever since then, so it's here to stay.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:50

That's why whenever we talk about Spanish affairs, we always but see, not I think coming to the end here, I think a deeper question than this, it's almost heretical to say, but given the dynamic of young people, overwhelmingly are more not only the supporters involved, but excited about Vox. And the fact that Pepe, for internal party dynamic reasons, isn't really that enthusiastic for the young people, and the young will become the senior voters. And also at the same time, Pepe doesn't seem to have a very particular rudder towards a strong directionality. Could it be that Vox could actually become a senior party in the center right dynamics in Spain?

SPEAKER_03 1:52:38

That is a question that Jesus Fernández Villaverde has thrown out there a lot. He's making a lot of projections. I don't like demographic projections that are too long, especially because you get outrun. Even so Jesus is a brilliant scholar, a professor at the Pennsylvania University, but he's a Spaniard. He's warned about how fertility is falling even faster than we thought it would in countries where we didn't even project it would go down. Yet at the same time, he's making these projections of how the Spanish electorate look will look like in decades. I see some inconsistency there.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:13

That's not inconsistent because it is a demographic drift that happens all time, and it's the current population numbers where it is. So even without that.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:22

But just notice how we don't even know what the demographics look like because two million inhabitants could be illegal immigrants, could be brought into the electorate soon. And we don't know what or more.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:34

And so, yes, I see how No, but I'm asking you given the number, let's say numbers are not going to change into the population numbers at all. Where we are now is fake.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:46

Yeah, you're asking what is called the sorpaso question. Yes. Sorpaso is an Italian term, which means to surpass, right? But we for some reason we always use the Italian term in Spanish, sorpaso. Will there be a sorpaso? I think it's very hard for Vox to get a sorpaso because there's many areas in Spain in which their presence is very marginal. And territorial dynamics matter. I also think that just because the young voters are predominantly right wing and with Vox, that doesn't necessarily translate into support for Vox forever.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:21

I also think the lack of institutional sophistication is what will limit Vox in the short, in the medium term. Because again, it's okay to get support for elections, but then you have to run cities and it's not a rally.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:40

You're not just shouting things to a crowd now. You have to manage your budget and take legal decisions. You need a lot of expertise, and you don't you need a little a lot of crunching. Deregulation, how do you deregulate? There's not human power that can deregulate Spain. That we've spoken about how this can be done today through tools and through AI properly trained, but not by the human team of a newborn party that has no political cadres ready to take on this challenge. So we'll see where it goes. I'll leave this as uncertain. I don't think it's that much of an easy thing for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:17

And of course, we're assuming PP itself doesn't get itself together, but have the more dynamic leadership. But how do you model that?

SPEAKER_03 1:55:25

How do you model who's going to be the PP leader? Like because for example, say there's a disaster and the left is able to cling to a majority. Yeah, so that's bad. But say four years later, now the country is definitely even more down the toilet. And say, for example, someone like Ayuso is brought as leader by PP, like many people have supported. What happens then to Vox? Well, she certainly attracts many people that vote for her regionally, but then nationally they do prefer Vox, or locally they do prefer Vox. So what happens? I wouldn't overthink things. But for now, overthinking, it's more like thinking. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. Sorry for that. Yeah, it's not overthinking. I'm just saying like too much uncertainty, too much unknown unknowns to go that deep into what could happen in the future. But that is something that I think PP is looking at. By the way, many of the people surrounding Feijo are rather young. That's true. So he realizes that. He realizes that.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:22

Yeah. Okay, Diego, we've come to the end of our Vox episode. I think the core thing we try to show is that no Vox actually fascists. That Vox has a very credible agenda that tracks very close to the median voter in Spain. And it's not actually some extreme party. The people in Vox are actually very credible at the top, even though the scandals might not make it seem that way. And there's a very serious force when it comes to thinking about the center and center-right dynamics in Spain.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:59

And we'll be here on the next episode of the Somewhere Anywhere podcast. We'll keep doing this series on political parties in Spain. And of course, now we've covered, roughly speaking, the center-right spectrum. And what's next? Well, there's a lot to talk about on the left wing side of things. And we'll be here to take you all the way and deep dive on all of those topics and many other issues of the Hispanic sphere and beyond.